Your correspondent’s affection for the Tallgrass Film Festival out of Wichita, Kansas (which just wrapped its 13th annual festivities) is easy enough to explain: it’s my hometown film festival, a revelatory occasion for Midwestern movie-makers and movie buffs, who are stuck with the customary mainstream multiplex picks for the other 51 weeks of the year. After moving away from Kansas and spending a fair amount of time at Big-Time Film Festivals™ like Sundance, NYFF, and SXSW, I’ve only grown to appreciate the comparatively modest Tallgrass even more—because in many ways, its intentions are pure. The festivities in Park City, Toronto, Telluride, and the like are a blast; they’re also part of the machine, where hype and buzz and (God help us) award possibilities are as much on minds and tongues as the quality of the work.
But at a festival like Tallgrass, people are there to see and celebrate movies, full stop. Their ambitious slate gives Kansans the opportunity to see distributed...
